


witches

by justsomerain



Category: Shoujo Kakumei Utena | Revolutionary Girl Utena
Genre: F/F, Growth, Introspection, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-29 02:18:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18769165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justsomerain/pseuds/justsomerain
Summary: Women are witches when they shirk the roles given to them, but their own view on their role is entirely dependent on their circumstances.Anthy throughout the show.





	witches

Witches are women who don’t follow the rules. Witches are goddesses. 

Anthy Himemiya was neither, if you asked her. Not anymore, but perhaps she had been one day, in a time far away from here. In the here and now she was the dutiful Bride, the eternal servant. Things were asked, or not, and she would do her duty. Enjoyment? She wasn’t wholly sure she had ever enjoyed anything. Not in recent memory, her being too detached from her form, too disconnected, like purposefully sitting oneself outside one’s body and seeing it go through the motions. It was better if she had no feelings, if she was not attached, not to those who would be her Engaged, and least of all to herself. 

And so she kept herself apart, no matter what. She would follow instructions, she would do her duty, as expected of her, and she would feel nothing. It was better that way. Nothing to feel, nothing to lose, nothing to mourn. It was easier. She would be dutiful, and her Brother would orchestrate his plans to bring revolution, failing, then taking it out on her, and the cycle would start anew. No, if she kept herself at a distance of everything, most especially of herself, it was easier. Anthy Himemiya stayed a Bride, a witch, separate from everything so as not to anger her Brother, so as not to feel, so as to make eternity so much easier than it was in actuality, the only thing penetrating the haze of dissociation the pain of a thousand swords.

So stay like that she did.

She was uncertain when exactly things started changing, the only thing she was certain of is that it had been after Utena Tenjou had become her Engaged. A girl made, it seemed, of high spirited dreams, of something both nobler and more selfish. Maybe not a Prince, but somebody who is significant. Utena Tenjou is sincerity and earnestness, and though she is not the first one to be kind to the Bride, she is the first one who is so earnest about it.

Anthy has to make an effort, the first in ages, in longer than she cares to remember, to hide her shock to herself. It’ll be soon enough that Utena Tenjou turns, she thinks. Initial kindness, unwillingness to take the Bride, it’s not uncommon. Sooner or later all Duelists, all of her Engaged do so. They turn cruel, indifferent. After all, she is just the Bride, a servant and a thing, not a person in her own right. She exists to serve, and even if it is only ostensibly to serve the Duelist who becomes her Engaged, she serves them, and she serves her Brother. She does as they wish, and she keeps herself removed from things.

With Utena Tenjou it is some time before she realises she has to keep her mind carefully blank, her distance from herself no longer a given thing, a coping so ancient it has become not even second, but her true nature. Slowly things trickle between her body and her self, like long thing threads of warmth reaching out to her self, trickling in between the swords, attempting to pull her back to where she physically is, and she resists them. She has to resist them, or she may be lost, having to face what she has become.

In those times where she can’t resist the pull of warm threads bringing her back to face this reality, in the dark, she’s filled with hatred. For her circumstances, her Brother, the Duelists, for herself, and even for Utena Tenjou. After all, without her presence, without her status as Engaged to the Rose Bride, the Bride herself would have been not content, nowhere close, but without her presence, the Bride would have been numb, removed from her self, able to weather it all that much more easily.

Utena Tenjou helps her. Is it truly helping? Anthy isn’t quite sure if this is helping, bringing her back to her body, closing the distance between her self and her physical presence, and through helping her, Anthy learns things about Utena Tenjou that she files away carefully. It’s not a kind thing to do, but she’s not sure she is kind. If anything she is the Rose Bride, and maybe a Witch, and there is no kindness in that. She files away Utena Tenjou’s exuberance, her righteousness, and her hero complex. She files away the kindnesses Utena Tenjou shows her, and the selfishness in the acts of kindness, whether her Engaged knows it’s there or not. She doesn’t think this self-styled Prince knows, doesn’t stop to reflect on why she wants to save Anthy. It’s not for the power of Revolution, never seeming interested in that, and it’s not for Anthy herself, not most of the time.

Perhaps she should tell her Brother about these things she learns about Utena Tenjou, but instead, when she retreats back from her self again, pulls back, she takes these things with her. It doesn’t make the sting of the swords any less, but she feels… She feels, for what may be the first time in a long time. There’s something about Utena Tenjou that makes things more bearable, and yet so much more unbearable. Serving her Brother, knowing that Utena Tenjou is so full of sincerity, wishing for her to have her own life, her choice. It’s unbearable, more so than when she is removed from her self, when she can stay in another place outside of her self. She also knows that if her Brother were to know he would only hurt her more.

As time goes on, little by little, she feels she has more power. Maybe not like she may once have had, nowhere near, but with Utena Tenjou as her Engaged she can manipulate things. It’s in small, insignificant ways, but the first time she does so, she marvels at it regardless, before muffling away her sense of wonder. She can not allow it, she can not afford it to feel it, or to feel anything. Not that it stops her, not that she can stop it. Utena Tenjou’s influence is an unstoppable force, and Anthy is forced to feel.

Being able to feel only makes her task more difficult. She knows how this plays out, she has seen it many times before, and she knows what comes next. Her Brother’s plans are in progress, and she will play her part, no choice of her own, just as she hasn’t had a choice in a very long time. Her Brother tells her what to do, and she does it, no concern for her pain, no concern if she feels anything, let alone regret, for that is what it is. She feels regret, growing inside her chest, forced to bear witness to it, to the way her Brother manipulates Utena Tenjou. She feels it most when they are in their room in the tower, the only light that of the skies outside, holding hands bridging the gap between their beds, even when she knows she can not bridge the gap between who Utena Tenjou thinks she is and who she knows she is.

She almost speaks up several times, but loses what courage she has, retreating back into the comfortable numbness, letting the gap between her body and her self grow.

In the end she never had a choice, she tells herself. Utena Tenjou fights her Brother, and as ever, as has happened a hundred times before, Anthy is the one to deal the devastating blow. Utena Tenjou’s body, soft against her front, tension abated for a moment, trusting her, and Anthy closes her eyes for a moment, regret and pain and something else shooting through her before she pushes the blade through her Engaged’s body. She tries to push it away, but she can not manage to do so. She has her role to fill, her part to play, whether she wants to or not. She is just a body, and she steps away with a look back and a pithy remark. If she had the freedom to say so, she might not have said it, she might have added that what she needed was not a Prince, after all, she was a Witch. Witches don’t need Princes, but there was no objection to two Witches.

Witches are, after all, stronger together.

The rest is familiar ground, and she retreats back from her self again, leaving her body to be the shell it has been for all this time. Either her Brother will open the Door to Revolution, or they begin this cycle anew in time. No matter what happens, she will stay back, and fulfil her role as the Rose Bride, an object to be used. It’s all to be expected.

What she does not expect is something that makes no sense, happening in the periphery of her senses, until the darkness around her is illuminated, an eternally bright light splitting the darkness, Utena Tenjou’s face visible through the crack in the darkness. Anthy isn’t quite sure how Utena Tenjou got here, she had been defeated, as had been projected, betrayed by the one she cared for and left behind as her Brother used Utena Tenjou’s heart to try and start the Revolution, and yet she is here, reaching out a warm hand to her, and with the hand comes the rushing of feelings that she has kept so divorced from herself.

There is only bewilderment and Utena Tenjou’s face and hand in that moment, outstretched to her, a moment that seems to last as long as all the time she has been the Rose Bride, before she stretches out her own hand, almost without thinking about it. She feels, for the briefest moment, something she’s not sure she has felt in all this time. She feels hope for a fleeting moment as their fingers touch, brush, and slip away, and Anthy feels nothing more than plummeting.

The beauty of the cycles, her Brother said, was that nobody remembers those who lose during it. Who would care for a failure, after all? This next cycle, he’ll succeed. There is no projected target yet, but Anthy knows, knows that her Brother is looking. He may lay quiet for a while, a serpent waiting to strike, a disease that is dormant only to come back again, and though he has changed nothing, Anthy is certain that she has. She feels it in her bones.

Witches know these things.

Witches know things, and feel things, and the most overwhelming feeling of all is the sense of satisfaction she feels when her Brother’s face falls, the realisation clear as day. 

Sometimes, Witches are women who break free, and Witches are stronger together.

**Author's Note:**

> my girlfriend got me hooked on utena so this is all her fault. (especially cause i'm not usually into anime)


End file.
